I was walking home from swimming the other day, and a mother and her kid were walking about 50 yards ahead of me. I noticed the child every so often looking round at me. I was walking at a faster pace than them. As I gained ground, the child started tugging on his mother’s arm with a distressed look on his face. Then as I neared, the child actually made his mum stop move to the side of the pavement as he hid behind her legs. She apologised to me as I passed, as did I for apparently terrifying her child.

Now, I admit I’m a big fella with a lot of hair and a beard, so I understand the child’s fear. And this wasn’t a fluke, this sort of thing has happened before. Once I was round a friends for a bbq and his daughter just started crying when she saw me.

These instances do upset me, as I am nice guy and wouldn’t hurt a fly, as my friends, family, girlfriend, and I reckon anyone who’s met me will tell you. I suppose I do see the funny side too. I know the parents do. Read more of this post

It came in the post on a Saturday. Yardley barked at the door, as he always did when post arrived. We heard him sniffing something; he let out a low whimper and trotted off towards the back of the house.

The whole family were gathered in the lounge watching The Show, it was my younger sister Lybena who’d picked the large dark red envelope up from the mat after hearing the dog. She announced to the room, ‘It’s for Oliver.’ She brought it over to me on the sofa, passing my mum and dad next to each other in their individual chairs. They saw the colour of the envelope and their attention shifted from the telly to the journey of the envelope towards me. When I had it in my hands they sat forwards on their seats and stared at me. ‘Turn off the telly Brian’ my mum said. My dad fumbled about for the remote, hit a button and the telly muted. ‘Turn it off I said!’ She lent over to grab the remote. ‘I meant to, I meant to’ he said. ‘I just hit the wrong button is all. Calm yourself.’ He was holding the remote at arms length from her and continued, ‘although you know we’re meant to be watching this, there could be an update, it is the rules after all. What if an Enforcer pops by?’ Read more of this post